Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ukma!uunet!nuchat!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: AREXX and ICP Message-ID: <762@sugar.UUCP> Date: Wed, 16-Sep-87 05:03:48 EDT Article-I.D.: sugar.762 Posted: Wed Sep 16 05:03:48 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 19-Sep-87 07:45:55 EDT References: <267@mitsumi.UUCP> <3939@well.UUCP> <581@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX Lines: 51 Summary: Why re-invent the wheel? In article <581@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>, ali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer) writes: > Of course, the above could've been possible without the use of REXX as well. > He would've still needed to hack up mg a bit. But, with REXX, you have the > capability to talk to any REXX compatible program, and any other editor > (TxED, for instance, which I understand has a REXX port?) could be used to > replace mg. Or that's what it sounds like to me. Why re-invent the wheel? Pipes have been shown over the past 13 years to be a reliable and convenient way of providing filters for all manner of disparate applications. The same thing is available to every one of you, right now, using the "save to pipe" capability in vnews. You can take this message and feed it through an awk program, or a while pipeline, just by entering: s|program Why not do the same thing in an analogous manner on the Amiga? The named pipes are already there. The only thing you need to do is set up a more convenient method for the user to deal wit them. I don't really think that my suggestion of CLI: is the last word on the subject, but I think it's the direction we need to be going. > That's the problem I see with REXX --- If it sells as a seperate commercial > product, I can't see it getting too successful. (A label on the package > says "Requires 512K Amiga, 1.2 KickStart. AREXX recommended.") And what > happens when the user gets REXX? "Copy the AREXX program from the REXX > disk to your TeX disk. Then edit your startup-sequence file and..." How about writing a REXX program to edit startup-sequence? > Maybe every developer that wants to use it should get a license to include > it with his/her program? That's a bit messy too. You can also understand > the author's attempt at making money off the program (he's also the > person who brought us conman). I think everyone should have the right to make money off it. Perhaps he can release a subset version of REXX with the TeX preprocessor hardcoded into it to be released with TeX, and charge for the full blown version? Conman is still a disappointment to me. It's PD, but the source is in assembler which pretty much precludes easy hacking. It doesn't have the features I would find desirable (adding menus and function keys via escape sequences, a-la ANSI.SYS on the IBM-PC), and I don't have the time to waste on 68000 assembly. I bought this machine so I could avoid assembly language. Has anyone done a driver in Aztec 'C' v3.4? All the examples and PD versions I've seen have been Lattice-based. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- 'U` ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Not seismo!soma (blush)